This column predicted that Andy Johnson could make-or-break Fulham's season - but I didn't expect the striker's absence to be that noticeable this soon. Missing from action since he clattered Lucas Neill and saw red against West Ham 12 days ago, the forward was sorely missed against West Brom on Saturday in a team described as 'lightweight' by one newspaper.

Bobby Zamora left to forage for himself is half the player than when he's supplying someone - or receiving the ball back from the supplied.

His partner on Saturday, Clint Dempsey, now wanted by QPR to kick-start their current malaise up front, is a decent enough forward: industry and energy are the American's obvious strengths. But in his two games this season, Dempsey's failed to bring a telling save from either keeper - and the first of those was against the moderate Championship challenge of Burnley in the Carling Cup defeat two weeks ago.

Ki-Hyeon Seol got a decent start at Hull, but was always destined to be the warm-up act for Johnson. And with the crocked Diomansy Kamara out for a good while yet, an awful lot will depend on an in-form AJ.

True, his debut was against a lacklustre Bolton at the beginning of September, but for 75 minutes Johnson's pace and trickery reduced poor Danny Shittu to a nervous wreck - and I have a lot of time for the ex-QPR defender.

All of a sudden, that lightweight-look tag from The Hawthorns could be reduced to featherweight if anything more serious happens to the £10m-man.

I only hope boss Roy Hodgson also had a word about unnecessary rash challenges dished out when a cooler head might have seen the Whites occupying the same sixth place of West Ham's this morning - rather than a too-familiar close-up of the relegation places below them.